My U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,097,837 (July 16, 1963); 3,401,924 (Sept. 17, 1968); and 3,699,433 (June 13, 1972) show developments of cable supported kilns, dryers, and drums during the past decade.
One of the difficulties in installing a single-drum-supporting cable of a set without jacking up the drum or lowering the sheave supports, has been the clamping together of sections of the terminal end portions of the cables where said sections must be slightly bent to follow curved recessess in the clamps so that the portions outwardly of said sections will be generally parallel with, but spaced outwardly of the loop that encircles the sheaves and drum. The section that is clamped preferably extends generally tangentially of the outline of the loop.
The above structure has been found to be satisfactory in providing a compact cable connector, and one that lends itself to application of a mechanism thereon to facilitate the shifting of the cable connector and the terminal end portions of the cable relative to each other longitudinally of the cable for prolonging the life of the cable.
In larger cables, such as used to support brick lined kilns and heavy loads, it has been particularly difficult to clamp together the sections of the cable as above described, since such sections are resilient and strongly resist bending to follow the paths required between the bodies of the cable connectors.
It has also been found difficult to take up the slack in a cable after the end sections have been connected in order to seat the cable in the sheave groove, and to thereafter tension the cable and to hold the tension until tension-holding elements are inserted, since the elastic properties of the cable are so great that the tension cannot be held, and the cable would spring back leaving no room for the tension-holding means.
In the present method, and with the present devices, the foregoing difficulties have been overcome.